Just Can't Win
by K9Lasko
Summary: A year gone by and Gibbs has missed much more than a kid's birthday party. S9's "Life Before His Eyes" AU.


**Written for both the "Missed Opportunities" and "Kiss Me Kate" challenges on NFA.** Thank you both, Enthusiastic Fish and flootzavut.

**Caution!** Season 9 Episode 14 spoilers.

This story is based on Season 9's "Life Before His Eyes." During that episode, there's an AU version of Gibbs' life in which Kate and Tony are married with a newborn girl. Gibbs is also portrayed as a reclusive alcoholic, apparently unreachable by anybody. This story takes place in that AU, one year in the future.

Title: "Just Can't Win"  
Rating: FR15 for mature themes (alcoholism)  
Genre: Drama, AU  
Characters: Kate Todd (DiNozzo), Leroy Jethro Gibbs  
Pairings: Kate/Tony, past Kate/Gibbs?  
Summary: A year has gone by, and Gibbs has missed much more than a kid's birthday party. "Life Before His Eyes" AU.

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**"Just Can't Win"**

**by K9Lasko**

There's noise on the stairs.

Deliberate, careful steps.

He already has a hand on the butt of a revolver.

"You missed the party," she says, watching that familiar hand as it clenches, shaking minutely, before falling away. "You said you would be there. You said you wouldn't miss her first birthday for anything." She has to pause in order to swallow the anger that is building in her throat. She's been so patient with this man. So gentle and understanding. But when is enough, enough? Beneath her anger, the only thing that's left is stinging disappointment. "Not even for whatever you have going on down here." She looks around. The basement of this old house is a dusty world stuck in stasis, with one man as its solitary inhabitant, feral and uncared for. It's a carefully curated and museum-like homage to a past life that's been dead and gone for decades.

Jethro Gibbs was a good and honorable man. Still is, she wants to hope and pray. She's done so much hoping and praying for him over the past year. Longer, even. She doesn't want to give up.

He turns around, but not all the way. Her obvious disappointment is hard to face. He'd much prefer the anger. He deserves the anger. "Yeah, about that, Kate-"

"No." Kate shakes her head and leans against the stairway railing, arms folded across her chest. "What's the excuse now?" She's got her dark hair tied back in a messy ponytail, and her eyes are tired. It's a grateful and proud kind of tired. A fulfilled kind of tired caused by sleepless nights spent caring for a child and sleepless days spent working a demanding job. Only part-time now, she's mentioned before. Parenthood looks good on Kate.

It's tiredness that is unlike Gibbs'; he's been run ragged and left haggard by something deep inside that refuses to heal. He had the privilege of parenthood once. That was a long time ago - many failed attempts at rekindled happiness ago - and sometimes, if he tries, he can recall that feeling; nowadays it's shrunken and stunted and warped.

He stares at the wall with bloodshot eyes. He hasn't showered in a week, and his teeth are fuzzy. His hair falls in greasy clumps around his ears. The reek of liquor clings to him. It's possessive and jealous, this love affair with the bottle. He hasn't even bothered to leave the house in two weeks. He could stay down in this basement for days on end, only pausing to sleep a few hours on the living room couch. The days and nights meld into one amalgamous whole, all of it the same. No highs, no lows.

"So what is your excuse?" Kate presses, and Gibbs realizes his mind has been somewhere else.

"Got things going on down here," he answers. He barely makes an effort with his excuses these days. There really wasn't a point. Kate is one of the few he has left to drive away. She's stubborn, but one day she'll stop visiting and she'll stop calling. Some day, she will. "A couple projects."

"The same ones that haven't changed for an entire year." She's not asking, or looking for confirmation of her suspicions. She already knows. She's accusing him, because she already knows. He hasn't done much down here but whittle the time away and get drunk. Always drinking. Killing himself. He is dying in this inebriated prison.

"I told you people to leave me alone," Gibbs snaps with the same suddenness and intensity that used to make her flinch. Today, it doesn't touch her. She knows how to weather this desperate storm. "I've got nothing left to give any of you. Leave me alone." He repeats these words once or twice for good measure. It's his battle cry, and he wields it with sharp-edged, self-righteous anger

But Kate pushes on, voice quiet yet no less ardent, "You promised that you'd come." She steps away from the railing, moves towards him. "Don't you remember?"

He hates her accusations, but he cannot deny that she's right.

"You haven't even met her, and it's been a year."

He turns away. "Bring her by, then. We'll sit out back. We'll use the grill." The suggestion is oddly dismissive, a placatory fantasy. That grill hasn't been lit in over six months.

"I won't bring her here." Kate's tone stings; she's dead serious. "Not with you like this. Tony would never allow it."

Something burns behind Gibbs' eyes as his hand clenches, itching to grab ahold of the bottle and pour himself another. He needs another. He's so damned tired of facing this reality. "Right," he admits. "Tony."

"How many years are you going to let pass you by?"

His hand trembles.

"You have people who care," she pleads. "You've got a whole family who cares. We're waiting for you, Gibbs. We love you." Her voice raises on its own accord. "Can't you see? God, Gibbs, _please_. Why can't you see?"

That same trembling hand grabs a jar filled to the brim with nuts and screws and nails. With a yell, Gibbs hurls it at the opposite wall. It bursts apart upon impact, and bits of glass and metal rain down on a year's old woodworking project. The destruction is immensely satisfying, so he grabs a hold of something else and aims to whip it at the wall even harder.

Kate shouts at him, unafraid of this wild rage. "You broke his heart!" She feels like she's perched on the edge of a deep, dark abyss, peering down into it and screaming at the top of her lungs. She wants to drive the point home. Drive it right into his soul, where she knows a good and brave and loving man is hiding, underneath all of this pain and misunderstanding. This is about so much more than a one-year-old's missed birthday party.

Gibbs wheels around and barks out a noise akin to laughter; his good humor has clearly atrophied from disuse. What's left is caustic cynicism. "What are you talking about?"

"Tony," she shouts. "When you never showed, you broke his heart."

Again, he laughs, although now it's quieter, more like a brokenly morose chuckle. "He washed his hands of me a long time ago, Kate. He was the first one to do it. You know that."

Kate can't stop the tears. She swipes at her face in frustration, even as she shakes her head. She hates to cry. "No, he didn't. You're an idiot. Can't you see?"

"You keep asking me that."

"I want an answer."

"You go tell DiNozzo to forget about me. Both of you, forget about me. It's not worth this trouble. Go love your daughter while you still can. If Kelly-" Gibbs has to stop to breathe. He's choking on some emotion he cannot name. God, he misses them. So much, even after years. Time hasn't healed anything. It has only prolonged his misery. Their absence only grows more conspicuous. His failure to punish their killer only draws closer - a choking and poisonous cloud of cowardice disguised as mercy. He goes on, "Don't waste your time with this. Don't waste your time on me. I'm done with this shit."

Kate boldly steps right up to his chest. She crowds him against the work table. Her brown eyes narrow and spark in the dim light thrown by the solitary bulb overhead. She refuses to give him an inch. This has to stop. Some day, this will have to stop. She says, "He acts like he's fine, but I see what he won't show anyone else. He'll never forget about you; he'll never let you go. It's agonizing, watching him worry over _you._ And for what? For you to keep living in this denial? I've held on this long for _your sake,_ Gibbs, so that maybe - maybe - Tony can have some peace of mind. And s_o help me God,_ I will never give up. Neither will Tony. He loves and respects you more than you'll ever know."

They stare at each other. His breath stinks of liquor. Her hair stinks of pool chlorine and sunblock. She doesn't move away. It's quiet except for the blood pounding past their ears and the nuisance barking of a few neighborhood dogs.

"You keep breaking his heart," she whispers. "Over and over. Does he deserve that from you? Do any of us?"

There's grit in his eyes. The stinging makes them water. It's grit; he swears it is. "I don't owe anybody anything anymore," he replies, also in a whisper. "That's what this is all about. So quit asking me. I can't-"

Kate reaches up and grips him by the face. His overgrown stubble digs into her palms. "Hey."

He stills. He doesn't fight her grasp. He has nowhere else to go. He denies the existence of the wetness building around his eyes. God, he's fought for so long. He's so, so tired. "Katie," he chokes.

"I know." She stares into his eyes, cloudy from a storm that refuses to lift. She pulls him close, her forehead against his. "I know."

"I can't win," he murmurs through the choking emotion, a foreign feeling after so many days spent adrift. "I just can't win. I'm sorry. Tell him I'm sorry."

"Tell him yourself."

_**END**_


End file.
